Draticus

Awesome detective work there Mr Zombie! I think I am going to have a key to toggle my FX on and off now.

BTW, sonic dispersion is now fixed on test (double yay)

1) 66%
2) 90%
3) 10%
4) 33%

Just give us the options of disabling HOs in arena fights, an option where they drop to an SO value of their primary. This way those who want to struggle hard to load up with HOs can fight with ohers who do the same, those who want to have PvP on a level playing field without having to grind through hami raids can.

Personaly I am not interested in the solo ranking system. Where I see the real fun is in an out-of-game organised team league. There may be different flavour leagues using different PvP options (HOs or no HOs, travel powers or no travel powers) so as long as we can change the options we can take part in the type of PvP we enjoy. Additionally, I can imagine that these leagues will take place on the test server. This way you can roll a pure PvP build without effecting your PvE build, as long as you keep one respec on your live server you can respec as many times as you like on test to tune your build, plus teams from all servers will be able to compete. And related to this thread, if you want to play in a HO league and a non HO league you can copy your character to the test server twice.

So, please give us the option of using HOs or not and everyone can be happy. Forcing everyone to compete in a HO rich environment just seems to me to be the devs way of giving 50s something to do, ie farm Hami. This is great for some people that strive to have the most powerfull character they can, and fair play to them, if they work hard then that should be their reward. But don't take the fun of pvp away from those that either don't enjoy raiding hami many times (I play COH for fun, but I have a lot of other fun things I like doing, I would prefer to quit COH and do other stuff than be forced to grind hami), or those who don't have time to raid hami often (I play from the UK, most open raids on my server are at 1-2am my time, I have to work during the day so I just can't go on many raids)

Most of this debate seems polorized between those that want HOs and those that want them removed from PvP. If Statesman had said there was an option to switch them off for PvP then this thread would be a tenth the size it is.

My vote goes to giving us the option to disable HOs in PvP.

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The answer to that final question is "To fill in the gaps where other AT's are missing" and my final assessment is that if the proper AT is not present to fill that role, then a Kheld will have to "suffice".

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I can understand why you are saying this, and it was similar to my view of what a Kheldian was. However, now I have my warshade at 38 the answer "To fill in the gaps where other AT's are missing" is wrong. My warshade can can now out AOE damage a fire blaster, and I don't have to rely on defenders to survive any return agro fire. Once eclipse is almost perma I will be even better.

How a battle may go. I phase shift, switch on inky aspect and tp intp the middle of large group before anybody else. Their alpha strike doesn't hit me, I turn off phase shift and do eclipse and then sunless mire - now I have 85% resistance and probably and extra 100% + damage/acc boost, plus many of the minions are disoriented. Slip into nova form and unleash my two AOEs - nova has a base damage of 120% of a blasters base, has an aditional +45% damage boost and I have 5 damage SOs in each. Any minion up to +3 is now dead and I just have to finish off lieuts and bosses. Their return fire at this point hardly tickles me because of the 85% resist, which lasts for a full minute and a half.

After a couple of battles I now have two blaster pets helping me out.

It is quite common in pickup teams to now hear, "PL me, I want a warshade!"

As I say, I understand why you don't want a jack of all trades, master of none in your group. However I disagree that this is what we are.

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Now i know that it is hard to compare a level 30 to a level 50 but i think my point can be made in simply saying that nova offers a 20 percent bonus to damage. So as the game progesses, leaving off even one SO on each nova power has essentially put you below the damage of a corridsponding blaster power. And almost every blaster i have ever seen, has atleast a set of 5-6 attacks slotted 6 with 5 damages and 1 accuarcy. Some in the device set with Targeting drones have 6 damages or i have even seen some run leadership for accuracy. But essentially if you have less then 5 Damages on a nova power they are going to come in below a blaster attack of equal magnitude. Which is why i believe that really requiring slots for human power, nova, dwarf, and normal pools, is crippling the character. Fine its versatility, well to make human form usable like all AT stamina is needed, but then to play in nova its needed there also (the slotting i mean) as well as on dwarf.

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I agree with a lot of what you said, but this bit is not quite right.

Nova "base" damage is 120% of blaster "base" damage. That isn't a 20% bonus, that is 20% more base, so all Enhs enhance the whole 120% not just the 100%.

Novas get an inherant +45% boost to their base damage, which equates to just over one SO for free.

Novas can slot the form for +To Hit, so potentially could have 6 damage SOs in each Nova power, only /dev blasters can also do this. Now in practice the end problems of Warshades are so bad you really need to slot one End Red in each Nova power. I can't vouch for other Warshades, but I six slotted my two AOEs as soon as I could.

So let us assume that a Nova has 6 slots in one of its powers, of which 5 are damage. The total damage compared to a blaster is:
120% * ( 100% + 45% + ( 5 * 33%) ) = 372% of blaster base damage

For a blaster that has 6 slots in a power, of which 5 are damage that is:
100% * (100% + (5 * 33%) ) = 265% of blaster base damage.

Now also factor in that a Khelidan can reach a damage cap of 450% of its base power (which equates to 540%) of a blasters base damage, where as a blaster caps at 350% of its base damage.

Now on top of this a warshade may typically have two pets out, which have base damage of 80% of a blaster, maybe with 3 damage enhs in, giving them damage of about 150% of a base blaster each! Tho of course, the pets do no have haste, so maybe you are getting 150% of a blasters base damage between two pets.

What I am trying to say is that Novas can be pretty mean blasting machines. Now for a warshade that uses eclipse before hand a nova can blast more than a blaster and have 85% damage resistance.

There is a big "however", where novas fall down is against mezzing mobs and psi damage mobs, as they have 0 status protection and 0 defence.

In summary, against "normal" mobs nova warshades can be amazingly powerfull, against mezzing mobs and psi damage mobs novas can still kick out the damage but are highly likely to drop out due to death/holds. This is a real dilema, as at 40+ as we all know the number of mezzing mobs is high. If I want to keep blasting these types of mobs I must now consider using my human form with power pools for defence, and this is where it all falls down. Human form warshades are very sub par blasters, and offer no buffs/debuffs to help the team in the way that defenders do.

I really don't want to lose the amazing blasting power of the nova form, so maybe what I have to do is take on mezzing mobs in dwarf form only. Hmmmm, only time will tell if the warshade can be as good post 40 as it is 30-40....

These are my naked thoughts on some of the pros and cons of the warshade, I hope they add something to the debate, which I agree is something we need to have to get it working as intended!

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I guess what i am asking is that with limited end, and 4 attacks, say only having 4 damage slots on powers at most you are a POOR blaster in the later game. I played a blaster i know this to be true. Now we look at human forms, when you add in wanting to deal damage or taking any forms really and making them even poor excuses for tankers or blaster, all your human powers suffer. Sheilds get short slotted, holds dont have staying power, attacks are weakened. I have heard that same thing from geko over and over again, as the crying sound of the mid level 20-low 30s kheldians, looking down the road, playing with hero planners, i can not see how keeping them versatile is availible. Keep in mind there about to drop our hit points as well, so now that quick nova to dwarf move will likly get you killed half the time, and with quantums i dont think any of us already think we dont die enough.

Like i said i would like a response. He clearly says that in balance he feels all AT should fill a role, what is my role, and if its versatility then give it to me. Having a 85 percent resist with no def buff and three powers, with no end regen to speak of is not equaling a tanker, having 4 attacks, again with limited end, is not equalling a blaster, then to turn around and have to reslot stamina, hasten and so forth to make a human form again is not going to keep that form versatile. I see as of now a ton of PB all being no form, tough defense sheilds with light form perma and the three melee attacks maxed since those are the only decent damage in the later game. That doesnt sound versatile it sounds lame. What i am asking hopefully to me will point out that just because we get a character that can do many things doesnt mean they do them well, and therefore should be addressed. And hopefully the answer will address many common complaints people have. Funny thing is everyone playing them seems to just say oh well i like them. Well i like mine to, but he has problems, asking those to be looked at is not wrong. And unfortunately it seems those that felt much as i do that the future of this AT is greatly limited rather then asking for issues to be addressed simply stopped playing them. So though when you take a opinon poll most people that have tried them i think side with my opinion in looking at the posts on the forum concerning slotting etc, it seems alot of people (and very good players) have given up on them already. And possible the devs should be addressing that. After all this was our post game content, we have a right to be herd if we dont like something. Im not saying he, or anyone has to agree with me, just merely stating my opinion, and i would like to know his.

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OK, I see where you are coming from. I think the Devs might be secretly pleased that not everyone likes Kheldians, as it makes them rarer. I think my warshade is good, but I think my mc/ff controller is better and more fun to play. The big problem is that you get the fun factor by the AT being hard to play, and not by having a nice array of utility powers to play with. As a warshade you basically get blasting/tanking and self buff, with a few weak controlling powers. Is that enough? Playing my warshade, in the same way as playing my mc/ff, makes me constantly think about what I am doing, and that keeps it fun. What it doesn't make it is an uber AT by default.

I can't coment on PBs, but post 32, and now post 38 my warshade really is coming to life. Will I take it all the way to 50? Well, a lot depends on when the arenas hit the test server, as I expect to then switch back to my more fun ATs to get to grips with PvP.

I guess another acid test would be, if it wasn't for the prestige of playing a Kheldian, would you prefer to play another AT instead? The answer is probably yes.

Final thought is that I am enoying playing my warshade, but it is also fair to say it isn't quite the AT we were promised or were expecting.

When the idea of being able to slip between tanker and blaster was first stated I was excited but dubious. Would that situation really arise that often? Ater playing a warshade for some time I have found that switching roles is very useful. Sometimes when a group is being over run, switching to dwarf can relieve the tanker, or grab agro off a squishy about to die. When things are back under control, switch back to nova form and AOE the remaining mobs very quickly.

What can a Warshade do? Dish out masive amounts of AOE in nova and with pets, and then unlike the AOE blaster, switch in to dwarf mode to survive the retaliation = lots of damage done to mobs, most initial agro is shared between the tank and the warshade/dwarf leaving the squishes safe. Once the tank grabs the agro back, switch to nova and finish the mobs in a couple of AOEs.

The END issue with warshades still concerns me, but apart from that I find them great fun to play, and I really think I make a big impact in a team (others my disagree!)

Very nice guide. I haven't used my Energy blaster much since just before issue 2 came out, but with epic PPs I think I will try some respec options, this guide has given me a couple of things to try out (mainly interupt time reducer on snipe)

On the subject of Acro/SJ/CJ, this is my current setup mainly because CJ gives you added resistance to imobalize and costs very little end, plus I like to ping about a bit during combat, and Acro also gives you some protection against holds (very useful in the 40+ game). Oh, and I love SJ, it is just fun

The BIG advantage of hover is keeping out of mele range outdoors, and makes target selection very easy. Main problem is it isn't so good indoors.

When I respec I am torn between the two. Hmm